The instant invention relates to buckle chute folders for folding sheets of paper, and more particularly to apparatus for inverting documents within the buckle chute.
Buckle chute paper folders employing folding rollers are well known. A sheet of paper is fed by a first pair of feed rollers into a buckle chute, which stops the forward progress of the paper sheet and causes a buckle to be formed. The buckle is then forced to enter the nip of a pair of folding rollers (one of which may be one of the feed rollers) which impart a crease in the buckle. The folding rollers then continue to feed the folded sheet toward a pair of exit rollers or another buckle chute for forming a second fold or inverting the document so that the top surface becomes the bottom surface and vice versa.
In those situations where it is desired to invert the document, the second buckle chute requires a modification so that the folded document is not folded a second time but rather is simply allowed to enter and then exit the buckle chute. In prior art buckle chute folders, the modification is effected by removing the buckle chute from the folding apparatus, and either replacing the folding buckle chute with an inverting buckle chute, or moving levers in the buckle chute so that its function is changed. The operator then either installs the replacement buckle chute or re-installs the modified, original buckle chute. In either case, the process is cumbersome and could not be described as user-friendly.
The instant invention obviates the foregoing problem of having to remove the buckle chute to change it from a folding format to an inverting format by providing a buckle chute with inverting apparatus that can be changed from the folding format to the inverting format without removing the buckle chute from the folding apparatus.